Book by Provost Smith Gives Advice For Developing Professional Life

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In his new book, "Pedestals, Parapets & Pits," University of Arkansas Provost Bob Smith offers a model for professional growth and development in the 21st century. Published by Phoenix International, the book is being distributed by the University of Arkansas Press.

Smith, who is also the vice chancellor for academic affairs, uses pedestals, parapets and pits to explain metaphorically the process by which professionals in any field can improve and sustain their careers.

"Pedestals" represent the highest callings of professional life, such as serving others, engaging in strategic planning, understanding diversity and becoming an integrated professional. The pedestals in Smith’s book are sources of encouragement, optimism and hope for professionals, but they are challenged by the parapets and pits.

Smith described "parapets" as pivotal career points at which professionals face the choice of rededicating themselves to pedestal-like efforts or falling into "pits."

Parapets and pits are discussed in chapters dealing with ambition and aggression, jealousy and envy, drama and manipulation, forthrightness and anger, love and lust, and selectivity and prejudice, among others.

Throughout the book, Smith uses real-world examples of professional successes, challenges and failures from academia, private business and nonprofit corporations to educate professionals. "Pedestals, Parapets & Pits" offers philosophical, pragmatic and substantive advice to professionals for developing an integrated understanding of their professional life.

The book is illustrated by Dusty Higgins, an award-winning editorial cartoonist who is a UA alumnus.

Smith earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmaceutical sciences at St. John’s University in New York and master’s and doctoral degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.